Cooking v2
by Ocean Starfly
Summary: WOOT, CLAMP School Detectives has it's own category now!  Anyway, this is an alternate version of my story Cooking - this is what would happen if Suoh were there.


What is it with me and alternate versions? A reviewer for the original version of this story commented that they wondered what Suoh would do if he were there. The thought made me laugh out loud (and nearly choke) and once I started writing I kept wanting to add more. So here you go, Akirafanatic, this is what would have happened if Suoh showed up!

* * *

"Ne, Kaichou, are you sure about this?"

"Of course, I'm sure, Akira."

"Demo…"

"Akira, you asked me at least a hundred times: _yes_, I'm sure. There's nothing to worry about!"

The CLAMP Campus high school division treasurer highly doubted that. They were in a kitchen after all, full of knives and other sharp objects, ovens (several of them, actually), flammable materials, and at least a dozen other potentially life-threatening objects. And, most dangerous of all, Nokoru… attempting to cook.

Life-threatening as it may be, Akira couldn't help but smile as Nokoru worked diligently at mixing all the ingredients and putting them in the oven. He mixed up salt with sugar in one or two when the sugar started running low, and the first few started burning before the blonde pulled them out (forgetting the oven mitts until the last second, resulting in a burnt finger). He had utterly refused any help whatsoever from Akira, even though the raven-haired boy was a master chef, claiming that it wouldn't be fair to the ladies.

Yes, Imonoyama Nokoru was baking cakes for White Day.

"Kaichou, you only have a few hours left before nightfall," Akira commented, glancing out the window. He had no real reason to stay, but seeing as Suoh was out with Nagisa and this was Nokoru after all, he had decided it would be a wise idea to keep an eye on the blonde, even if he wasn't allowed to help.

The Imonoyama heir ignored him as he pulled out the last cake. Nokoru had decided to bake cakes to be divided up and set out buffet-style for all the girls who had given him Valentine's chocolates to take a slice. Usually the council board members forwent any attempts to reply to every chocolate given to them for Valentines, but Nokoru figured that he should do something for them since it was his last year before he went to university and became incredibly busy – this had seemed like the easiest way, except for the fact that Nokoru had insisted on baking all of the cakes himself.

"You've been at it all day, shouldn't you take a rest?" Akira questioned, slightly worried for his friend. Kaichou didn't have very good physical abilities as it was, and he had been on his feet, mixing and lifting cakes since the early morning. Suffice to say that at least one entire cake was covering his hair, clothing and face in the form of flour, egg, and dough.

Akira hopped off the counter he had been sitting on and headed in the direction of the stove.

"I told you not to help me Akira!" Nokoru said suddenly, frowning from where he stood, just starting to ice the cakes.

"I'm not. But surely I can get you something to drink?"

The blonde blinked; he had hardly eaten anything the whole day (Akira had had to force him to stop for lunch and he had had only a few fingers of leftover dough since). "I suppose that would be fine. Thank you, Akira," he said, his face relaxing into a smile.

Akira smiled back and pulled out some tea. At the same time, Nokoru managed to burst the container of white icing. The blonde let out a yelp, holding the exploded tube at arm's length as if afraid it would explode again. His hands and forearms were now covered in the sticky, sugary white substance.

"Mou, kaichou," Akira teasingly complained, lips twitching with suppressed giggles. He walked over to the man who was now licking the icing off his hands.

"No reason to waste, ne? Akira," the blonde grinned, swiping one icing covered hand across the other male's face. Akira stuck out his tongue to lick at the sugar.

"It's good!" the high school treasurer chuckled.

Nokoru smiled. "Isn't it? Here, have some more."

And with that, the student councilman grabbed another tube of icing and squirted it at Akira. For a moment, the latter only blinked in surprise. Then he yelled, "Kaichou!" before grabbing his own sugary weapon. Laughter rang throughout the kitchen, echoing off the appliances as the two teenagers ran around the kitchen, ducking behind counters and leaning out to fire. Sparkling white icing soon draped half the counters and stoves, was smeared over the refrigerator, and dripped from the ceiling as well as both council members.

Just then, Suoh walked in.

"Kaichou, I heard-" he cut off as he was splattered in the face with icing.

"Uwah!" Nokoru and Akira cried out from where they sat at the floor. Akira had managed to deflect Nokoru's latest attack, but in doing so it had flown through the air straight into Suoh's face.

Nokoru recovered first. "Suoh, konnichiwa! Why don't you join us?" He stood from his position, but as he did so he slipped on a patch of icing. He yelped as he fell backwards against a tall cabinet holding the big bags of flour. The impact shifted some of the bags, a few of which were already hanging out from where Nokoru had pulled them out for the cakes. One wobble… two wobbles… they started to slide out, heading straight for Nokoru.

The blonde barely had time to register the danger of ten or twelve ten pound bags of flour falling on him before Suoh had cleared a counter and he and Akira were pulling Nokoru out of danger. However, the floor was still covered in icing and the ninja and the acrobat pulled a little too hard, slipped on the white stuff, causing them both to crash to the ground… and straight into the counter with the cakes.

"Look out!" It was too late.

"Oof!" The wind was knocked out of Akira as his kaichou landed directly on top of him.

"Gomen, Akira - !" Nokoru moved up to his elbows quickly, his words cut off by the site beneath him. Akira's head had landed just about perfectly center on the cake. The stunned looking kohai's black hair was in stark contrast to the halo of white cake and icing. Nokoru tried to keep his laughter back and ask if his friend was okay, failed miserably, and burst out laughing. Akira blinked dazedly as Nokoru's head dropped onto his chest; the kaichou's whole body shook with laughter, blonde hair tickling Akira's collar bone.

"Gomen, Akira… you just… look so…" he managed to gasp out before lapsing back into laughter. Suoh looked over from where he had crashed beside them and tried to hold back a laugh by putting a hand over his mouth. But the mood was too good and the site too humorous for him to hold out for long, and the ninja quickly joined his One in merriment. The kitchen filled with their laughter while Akira could only smile in response, a grin slowly spreading on his face. It had been a while since the three of them had had so much fun together, just doing something crazy and fun that was able to make even Suoh laugh.

Above them a door opened.

"Ah… sumimasen!" The black, blonde and blue haired teens looked up just in time to see two girls standing in the doorway, one blushing like mad while the other grinned like a maniac. Then they had closed the door and their shrieking could be heard echoing down the hallway.

"That was…"

"Saruwatari Miharu and Kago Sachiyo."

"There are going to be rumors aren't there."

"Maybe. Kago-chan is extremely shy, so I don't think she'll say anything, but Saruwatari-chan is notorious for telling tall tales. The question is whether people will believe her or not."

Silence was barely able to settle before all three young men broke into another fit of laughter. They hadn't acted this goofy in a while, and they were enjoying it immensely; they weren't going to worry about a couple of witnesses.

Nokoru eventually rolled off of Akira to make breathing easier. Whenever they seemed about to stop laughing, they glanced at each other and started up again.

Then, without warning, Akira gasped, "Kaichou!"

"What is it, Akira?"

"You only have a few hours left until White Day!"

The heir to the Imonoyama zaibatsu screamed as leaped to his feet - with Suoh following just in case - before it turned into laughter, which Akira and Suoh joined in on, as he rushed back to the (thankfully still safe) cakes. They had a lot of work to do before the girls started arriving at school, unaware of the special treat being prepared for them.

A few hours later, as the clock chimed midnight, Nokoru sat back with a sigh, surveying the completed cakes. They were beautiful, sparkling white under the fluorescent lights. Some were decorated with chocolate, others with strawberries, and still others had delicate flowers in pink and purple and green icing, catering to the varied tastes of all the girls of CLAMP. All the cakes with mistakes – kindly pointed out by Akira – were set aside.

"Finally, done!" Nokoru stretched his arms up as a yawn split his face.

"Not quite, Kaichou," Suoh said, cutting in to Nokoru's satisfaction. The blonde turned around in confusion so the ninja clarified, "You still need to clean up."

"Ah… ehehe, I suppose we do." Nokoru sweat-dropped as he glanced around at the large kitchen, still dripping with icing and full of used bowls and utensils and left out ingredients.

"What 'we'?" Suoh perked up at the telling word and frowned.

The high school student chairman gave his trademark mischievous smile, which was really more of a disguised smirk. "Why Suoh, are you trying to get out of work? And you're always scolding me about doing the very same." The blonde shook his head in mock surprise.

"Kaichou…"

"You two participated in our little icing war, so you two helped make this mess," Nokoru explained quickly, before his bodyguard could protest.

Suoh and Akira exchanged sheepish, convicted looks before sighing, in Suoh's case, and chuckling, in Akira's case. They hopped out of their seats and began the laborious work of cleaning the industrial size kitchen. Nokoru's smirk changed to a smile. It was good to have friends.

Suddenly, after they had been cleaning for about ten minutes, Suoh spoke up, "Kaichou, don't you dare make any more mess while we're cleaning."

Behind him and across the kitchen, the kaichou jumped guiltily, nearly dropping the water gun in his hands.

"How, how did he…? He never even turned around!"

Beside him, Akira giggled. "Takamura-senpai knows you too well, Kaichou."

It was the wee hours of the morning before the three had finally finished cleaning.

"Finally! Done!" Nokoru exclaimed tossing the rag he had been using to wipe icing off a refrigerator in the basket set out for dirty towels and rags. "For real this time, ne, Suoh?" he added, patting his bodyguard on the shoulder.

The blue haired ninja nodded and the blonde let out a sigh of relief.

"Now we just need to take the cakes down and set them up," Akira chirped. They each grabbed a cart and headed to the elevator.

A row of tables had already been set up in the garden so all they had to do was set the cakes out. The sun finally broke over the horizon by the time they finished.

"We're lucky that it's a weekend. We have a chance to catch up on some sleep!" Akira commented, covering a jaw splitting yawn with his hand.

Nokoru agreed, and then realized that Suoh was not standing with them. "Eh? Where'd Suoh go?" he asked, looking around.

"Takamura-senpai is over on that bench," Akira answered, pointing to the seat not far from the White Day set-up. He called to the older male, but received no reply.

"That's odd." The black and blonde high schoolers looked at each other and walked over to their board mate.

Akira called again when they were a step away from the third council member. "Takamura-senpai?"

Nokoru bent over to get a view of his bodyguard's face. "Ah-ha! Suoh's fast asleep!"

"No way – Takamura-senpai?" Akira said in disbelief. But then he smiled and commented kindly, "He must be really tired." It was unusual for the blue-haired teen to seem so vulnerable.

"Imonoyama-sama, Ijyuin-kun!" a voice called from some distance. One of Suoh's classmates ran to a panting stop before the two student council members. "Oh, I was just going to ask you where Takamura-kun was," he said when he had caught his breath and sight of Suoh. "Oi, Takamura-kun. The club president wanted to know if you'd give a demonst-" the eleventh grader reached out to shake Suoh's shoulder, but as soon as he touched the sleeping ninja, he was thrown to the ground.

Nokoru and Akira gasped at the excellent judo throw. "As expected of Takamura-senpai," said Akira, helping the student to his feet. "Daijobu ka?" the youngest of those present questioned as Suoh blinked his eyes open.

"Ah, gomen nasai, Ishimaru-kun! It was a reflex!" he cried, heat rushing to his cheeks, quickly realizing what he had done.

Ishimaru laughed it off, saying, "Nah, it's like Ijyuin-kun said – totally like you! But I did come here because the club president wants to know if you'd give a demonstration."

"Ah, sure. When?" Suoh asked, rubbing the heel of his palm against his eye.

"This morning, in about," Ishimaru glanced at his watch, "twenty minutes."

"So soon…" Suoh murmured, frowning. All the same, he nodded. "I got it-"

"Pardon me," Nokoru interjected, grabbing Suoh's arm. "But I need Suoh for council duties this morning. Is it possible for someone else to do the demonstration?"

"Well, yes, the club president was just hoping Takamura-kun might do it, since he is the best in the club. But if you're busy, don't worry about it." The eleventh grader gave a crooked grin and turned to run off, calling over his shoulder, "I'll let the club president know that you're busy. See you at practice!"

Suoh looked down at the kaichou. "I thought we didn't have any council duties this morning; at least, nothing urgent."

"That's because we don't," Akira supplied helpfully.

"Then…?" Suoh glanced from Akira to Nokoru in confusion.

"You've been working yourself too hard again, haven't you," the blonde accused.

"Eh, that…" Suoh tried to protest, but he had been caught.

"Nearly all of your clubs and classes have events coming up around the same time." Kaichou frowned as he remembered when he first realized that all the papers coming across his desk involved most of Suoh's classes and clubs. He had tried to reschedule some of them, but at least one important person involved in all of them could only do it that day or the location was completely booked at all other times. As a result, Suoh had at least five events to prepare for that would all happen during the span of one week.

Shaking his head to return himself to the present, Nokoru hooked an arm around each of his two best friends. "Today, we are all going to prepare: by catching up on sleep! I declare a sleep over!" Nokoru announced, already tugging his friends along. "You are both coming to my house; it's been a while since we all got together there, ne?"

Akira agreed while Suoh opened his mouth to try to protest again; if there really wasn't anything Kaichou needed him for than he should fulfill his duty to his club. But before he had even said anything, he stopped. His One was right; not just about them not having visited his house or slept over in some time, but also about how much he had been doing lately. He really was about to fall over from fatigue. So Suoh closed his mouth and let it shift into a smile. It was good to take a day off, once in a while. Wasn't that the reason people celebrated Sabbaths? It was a good idea, Suoh decided, for once letting himself be pulled along with Nokoru's antics.

* * *

I actually like this version. I didn't too much at first, but then as I started adding more and more to it, it started to get much better. Anyway, I just really wanted to make Suoh laugh, and then I really wanted him to fall asleep due to overwork. Next time I need to bring the girls in, instead of these random OCs.

Well, let me know what you think! As in, please review! Love to all my readers!


End file.
